From: Mike Penny Subject: Re: SPI's Central Front Series (was Re: GAME: NATO/Pact) Mike Penny said: > I've always liked the Central Front Series because the friction > point concept was interesting (don't really know how realistic > though). But it did force the Soviet player to try to play with > Soviet doctrine (i.e. Continually trying to work fresh units into > play thru fatigued units) to get a continuous attack. I never played > with nukes just the CBW rules although I watched a large scale game > (all three games put together) at Orccon ... And Chris Weuve said: >I have a few questions: >1) What games were part of this series? >2) Did the maps link up, like GDW's Third World War? >3) Can someone describe the friction point concept a bit more? >Thanks! 1) There were three games that the original SPI put out 5th Corp, BOAR, and I think 7th Corps. There was a supposed 4th game put out much later that completely abandoned the friction point concept and didn't mesh at all with the old games. 2) Yes the maps linked with some cutting of the maps. 3) The concept as I remember it was that everytime you move or engage in combat and take loses you accumulate friction points. Basically one side moved until he was to fatigued thru friction point accumulation to move and fight any longer. Each unit had a maximum amount of friction points that it could accumulate before it lost unit cohesion and desolved (destroyed). Movement cost more for units as they gained friction points and you had to be out of enemy ZOC and I believe in supply in order for friction points to go away (usually 1 friction point per turn). ZOC's were rigid and if I remember correctly to get out of a ZOC other than by combat you had to gain a friction point and then roll a dice - the unit had a 50% chance of being able to successfully disengage from an enemy ZOC. This made the Russian task of getting fresh units up to take the place of fatiqued units already engaged very difficult and virtually forced the Russian commander to burn up units and then follow up with fresh units. It also made the task of trying to engage in a fighting withdrawal very difficult for the NATO player. Between the three games there were U.S., West German, British, and I believe Belgian units on the NATO side. On the WP side there were Soviet, East German, and Hungarian units. Might be a couple of other pact countries. Air Power was abstracted into Air Support points, choppers had counters to represent them, artillery had ranged fire, units had attack, defence, air defense, and movement values. If I remember 5th Corp was a magazine games and was followed by the other two. BOAR was boxed. Anyone else have anything to add - feel free. Yours, Mike Penny From: Noel Wright Subject: Central Front Series (SPI) This is hard to explain, but there were a series of alternating movement phases (combat was a function of movement) for the two players. A player was allowed to move as many or as few of his units as he liked, then the other player could do the same. They repeated this process until neither side wanted to move. One of the limitations here was that any units that did not move in their initial player movement phase did not get to move later on. Every time a unit moved, it received a friction point. Combat counted as movement for this purpose, though combat, as such did not require an additional receipt of FPs. By that, I mean that it was possible for a stack to attack more than once per movement phase, but those attacks would not each require a FP. Prior descriptions made it appear that units or stacks had to attack individually. This is not the case. Multi-hex attacks were possible for units which had not yet expended any operations points (movement points). After combat, one stack could then continue to move. It is true, though, that you could not move a bunch of units up to an enemy stack and then attack. You would have to move them up in one phase, and then attack in your next movement phase. This was called a prepared attack. (something similar exists in the XTR game 1914) Stacking was limited to two NATO or three WP units per hex. WP could only have one regiment per hex, though. Most WP maneuver units were regiments, apart from one tank battalion in some divisions, and para/airmobile units. The additional WP units to be stacked were the artillery/MRLs. In fact, the WP artillery was double-strength in direct support(stacked). As other people stated, this was a game that basically required the WP player to follow doctrine. You really, really needed to maintain that second echelon if you wanted to get anywhere. As far as nukes go, I found that the WP could nuke the NATO artillery and kill two birds with one stone. First, because the artillery was NATO's primary defensive reserve. Second, because most NATO nukes were tied to the artillery units (either the artillery itself, or the SSMs).